This chapter contains practical advice on how to write a statement for an inquest.

Many nurses will be asked to give evidence at a coroner’s inquest during their nursing career. Being asked to give evidence can feel incredibly daunting and generate complex feelings. It’s important to remember that the coroner is looking for your help with the inquiry. The coroner can also seek an expert opinion by a nursing professional on the care of the person who has died. This chapter provides advice on how best to fulfil your duty.

The role of the coroner is to investigate violent, unnatural or unexplained deaths, as set out in the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009. The coroner is a creature of statute; the oldest judicial office confirmed in 1194, but in existence before that time, to assist the Crown with the valuable and inevitable business of death. This chapter outlines the duties and responsibilities of a coroner.

In the Sophist, Plato asks how there can be false statements. A false statement (logos) says what is not. But a statement cannot say nothing – there must be something that it says. Plato tries to solve the puzzle by investigating the notion of not-being and the notion of a logos. To understand not-being, we must first understand being. That in turn requires understanding how something can be called by many different names. Plato’s solution to these problems rests on the distinction between what something is of itself and what it is because it is related to other things. It also rests on an understanding of the notion of difference. The class of not-beautiful things, for example, is a real group: they are different from the beautiful things. Similarly, not-beings are a real group. The upshot is this: “Theaetetus is flying” is false, in that flying is different from what is with reference to Theaetetus. Theaetetus has being. Flying has being. But “Theaetetus is flying” says with reference to him what is not.

Chapter 6 turns to Michel Foucault, looking at both his early archaeological work and his introduction of power in the later genealogical writings. It focuses on how his early work examines the rules which precede and make possible judgements. We will see that Foucault derives the term and method of archaeology from Kant’s own work, though Foucault develops his own non-juridical logic of it. It then shows how this attempt to understand thinking as different from judging carries on into Foucault’s later genealogical work with his notion of biopower as an attempt to provide an alternative model of power to what we find in the juridico-discursive model that he argues typifies traditional understandings of it.

Your vision statement for your group, presented both orally and in writing, is one of your most important and memorable acts as a leader. It should be given a great deal of advance thought and planning ahead of time, and you should be sure to vet it with a number of people who will give you good and frank advice. Although they can be intimidating, vision statements are usually full of positivity and forward thinking, are a great source of inspiration to your group, and serve as the ultimate frame of reference. This chapter describes difference between “mission” and “vision,” and how to develop both types of statements. It discusses the three “pillars” of academic medicine – clinical, research, and education – but also additional pillars worth considering as you develop your mission and vision statements. It goes into how to set goals, metrics, and milestones for your vision statement, as well timelines for achieving them. It then describes how to get your group to fully understand your vision and rally behind it, and concludes with a discussion of how to periodically reassess and recalibrate your vision.